gone Johanna was in the saddle, charged by her mistress with the
delivery of a letter which she was "on no account to show or mention to
anyone but----"
"Yass'm," meekly said Johanna, and rode straight to the office of John
March.
A kind greeting met her as she entered, but it was from Henry Fair, and
he was alone. He, too, had been reading a letter, a long one in a lady's
writing, and seemed full of a busy satisfaction. Mr. March, he said, had
ridden out across the river, but would be back very shortly. "Johanna, I
may have to go North to-night. I wonder if it's too early in the day for
me to call on Miss Garnet?"
"No-o, seh," drawled the conscientious maid, longing to say it was.
"H-it's early, but I don't reckon it's too early," and was presently
waiting for Mr. March, alone.
Hours passed. He did not come. She got starving hungry, yet waited on.
Men would open the door, look in, see or not see her sitting in the
nearest corner, and close it again. About two o'clock she slipped out to
the Hotel Swanee, thinking she might find him at dinner. They said he
had just dined and gone to his office. She hurried back, found it empty,
and sat down again to wait. Another hour passed, and suddenly the door
swung in and to again, and John March halted before his desk. He did not
see her. His attitude was as if he might wheel and retrace his steps.
Mrs. March had broken off her engagement promptly. But when Garnet, by
mail, still flattered and begged, the poetess, with no notion of
relenting, but in her love of dramatic values and the gentle joy of
perpetuating a harrowing suspense, had parleyed; and only just now had
her tyrannical son forced a conclusion unfavorable to the unfortunate
suitor. So here in his office March smote his brow and exclaimed,
"O my dear mother! that what is best for you should be so bad for me!
Ahem! Why--why, howdy, Johanna? Hmm!"
With silent prayers and tremors the girl watched him read the letter. At
the first line he sank into his chair, amazed and pale. "My Lord!" he
murmured, and read on. "O my Lord! it can't be! Why, how?--why--O it
shan't be!--O--hem! Johanna, you can go'long home, there's no answer;
I'll be there before you."
At the post-office March reined in his horse while Deacon Usher brought
out a drop letter from Henry Fair. But he galloped as he read it, and
did not again slacken speed till he turned into the campus--except once.
At the far edge of the battle-field, on that ridge where in childhood he
had first met Garnet, he overtook and passed him now. As he went by he
slowed to a trot, but would not have spoken had Garnet not glared on him
like a captured hawk. The young man's blood boiled. He stood up in his
stirrups.
"Don't look at me that way, sir; I've just learned your whole miserable
little secret and expect to keep it for you." He galloped on. When,
presently, he looked behind, Garnet had turned back--to find Leggett.
That search was vain. Cornelius and his "Delijah," kissing their hands
to their creditors, were already well on their way into that most
exhilarating of all conundrums, the wide, wide world.
From Pulaski City Garnet returned on the early morning train to Suez,
intending to ride out to Rosemont without a moment's delay. But on the
station platform he came face to face with John March. They went to the
young man's office and sat there, locked in, for an hour. Another they
used up in the court-house and in Ravenel's private office with him
between them in the capacity of an attorney. Yet when the three men
parted Ravenel had neither asked nor been told what the matter was which
had occasioned the surprising legal transaction that they had just
completed.
"Now," said Garnet, briskly, "I must hurry home, for I want to leave on
the evening train."
He rode out alone upon the old turnpike and over the knoll where Suez
still hopes some day to build the reservoir, and reached the spot where
he and his young adjutant picked blackberries that first day we ever saw
them. There he stopped, and looking across the land to the roofs of
distant Rosemont, straightened up in the saddle with a great pride, and
then, all at once, let go a long groan of anguish and, covering his
face, heaved with sobs that seemed as though each tore a separate way up
from his heart. Then, as suddenly, he turned his horse's head and rode
slowly back. Twice, as he went, he handled something in the pocket of
his coat's skirt, and the third time drew it out--a small repeater. He
did not raise the weapon; he only looked down at it in his trembling
hand, the old thimbles still in the three discharged chambers, the lead
peeping from the other two, and, thinking of the woman who shared his
ruin, said in his mind, "One for each of us."
But it never happened so. He often wishes, yet, that it had, although he
is, and has been for years, a "platform star;" "the eloquent Southern
orator, moralist and humorist"--yes, that's the self-same man. He's
booked for the Y. M. C. A. lecture course in your own town this season.
His lecture, entitled "Temptation and How to Conquer It," is said to be
"a wonderful alternation of humorous and pathetic anecdotes,
illustrative, instructive and pat." I have his circular. His wife
travels with him. They generally put up at hotels; tried private
hospitality the first season, but it didn't work, somehow.
They have never revisited Dixie; and only once in all these years have
they seen a group of Suez faces. But a season or two ago--I think it was
ninety-three--in Fourteenth Street, New York, wife and I came square
upon Captain Charlie Champion, whom I had not seen for years, indeed,
not since his marriage, and whom my wife, never having been in Suez, did
not know. Still he would have us up to dinner at his hotel with Mrs.
Champion. He promised me I should find her "just as good and sweet and
saane as of old, and evm prettieh!" Plainly the hearty Captain was more
a man than ever, and she had made him so! He told us we should meet
Colonel Ravenel and also--by pure good luck!--Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fair.
You may be sure we were glad to go.
Ravenel had to send us word from the rotunda begging us to go in to
dinner without him and let him join us at table. Champion neglected his
soup, telling us of two or three Suez people. "Pettigrew?--O he left
Suez the year Rosemont chaanged haynds. Po' Shot!--he's ow jail-keepeh,
now, you know--he says one day, s'e, 'Old Pettie may be in heavm by now,
but I don't believe he's happy; he'll neveh get oveh the loss of his
sla-aves!'"
Fair spoke of John March, saying his influence in that region was not
only very strong but very fine. Whereto Champion responded,
"--Result is we've got a betteh town and a long sight betteh risin'
generation than we eveh had befo'. I don't reckon Mr. Fair thinks we do
the dahkeys justice. John says we don't and I don't believe we do. When
it comes to that, seh, where on earth does the under man get all his
rights? But we come neareh toe it in the three counties than anywheres
else in Dixie, and that I _know_."
I dropped an interrogative hint as to how March stood with Ravenel.
The Captain smiled. "They neveh cla-ash. Ravenel's the same mystery he
always was, but not the same poweh; his losin' Garnet the way he did,
and then John bein' so totally diffe'nt, you know--John don't ofm ask
Jeff-Jack to do anything, but he neveh aasks in vaain.--John's motheh?
Yes, she still lives with him.--No, she ve'y seldom eveh writes much
poetry any mo', since heh book turned out to be such a' unaccountable
faailu'e. She jest lives with him, and really"--he dropped his
voice--"you'd be amaazed to see how much she's sort o' sweetened and
mellered under the influence of--Ah! there's Colonel Ravenel----"
He broke off with a whisper of surprise. At a table near the door
Garnet's wife sat smiling eagerly after her husband as if it was at her
instigation he had risen and effusively accosted Ravenel; and both she
and Garnet knew that we all saw, when Ravenel said with an unmoved face
and colorless voice,
"No. No, I'm perfectly sure I never saw you before, sir." It may have
been wholly by chance, but in drawing a handkerchief as he spoke he
showed the hand whose thumb he had lost in saving Garnet's life.
The "star" hurried back to his seat and resumed conversation with the
partner of his fate--for a moment. But all at once she rose and went
out, he following, leaving their meal untouched.
Wife, as it was right she should, fell in love with Mrs. Fair on the
spot, and agreed with me by stolen glances I knew how to interpret, that
she was as lovely and refined a woman as she had ever met. Boston had
not removed that odd, winning drawl so common in the South, and which a
Southerner learns to miss so in the East. But when wife tried to have
her talk about Suez and its environs she looked puzzled for an instant
and then, with a light of mild amusement in her smile, said,
"O!--I never saw Suez; I was born and brought up in Chicago."
"No," said Ravenel, "it's Mrs. Champion who can tell you all about
Suez."
"That's so!" cried Champion, and turning to his wife, added, "What the
Saltehs don't know about Suez ain't wuth knowin', is it, Mahtha?"
That night I told wife this whole story. As I reached this point in it
she interposed a strong insinuation that I am a very poor story-teller.
"I thought," she continued, "I thought I had heard you speak of John
March as a married man, father of vast numbers of children."
To the last clause I objected and she modified it. "But, anyhow, you
leave too much to be inferred. I want to know what Garnet's fatal secret
was; and--well, I don't care especially what became of the commercial
traveler, but I _do_ want to hear a little about Barbara! Did she marry
the drummer?"
I said no, apologized for my vagueness and finished, in effect, thus:
Before Barbara came down-stairs, at Rosemont, that day, to see Mr.
March, she sent him Leggett's letter. Cornelius had caught scent of the
facts in it from Uncle Leviticus's traditions and had found them in the
county archives, which he had early learned the trick of exploring. The
two Ezra Jaspers, cousins, one the grantee of Widewood, the other of
Suez, had had, each, a generous ambition to found a college. He of
Suez--the town that was to be--selected for his prospective seat of
learning a parcel of sixty acres close against the western line of
Widewood. Whereupon the grantee of Widewood good-naturedly, as well as
more wisely, "took up" near the _Suez tract_ the sixty acres which
eventually became Rosemont. Both pieces lay on the same side of the same
creek and were both in Clearwater County, as was much, though not the
most, of Widewood. Moreover, both were in the same "section" and
"range," and in their whole description differed scarcely more than by
an N and an S, one being in the northwest and the other in the southwest
corner of the same township. On the ill-kept county records these twin
college sites early got mixed. When Garnet founded Rosemont his friends
in office promised to tax that public benefaction as gently as they
dared, and he was only grateful and silent, not surprised, when his
tax-bill showed no increase at all. But while Rosemont was still small
and poor and he seriously embarrassed by the cost of an unsuccessful
election, came this letter of Leggett's to open his eyes and complete
his despair. There across it were his own pencilings of volume and page
to show that he had seen the record. In one of his mad moments, and in
the hopeful conviction that the mulatto would soon get himself shot or
hung, he paid him to keep still. From that time on, making Leggett's
silence just a little more golden than his speech, he had, "in bad
faith," as the lawyers say, been pouring all his gains, not worse spent,
into property built on land belonging to the Widewood estate; that is,
into Rosemont. When Judge March found his Clearwater taxes high, he was
only glad to see any of his lands growing in value. When John came into
possession, Garnet, his party being once more in power, had cunningly
arranged for Rosemont not to be taxed on its improvements, but only on
its land, and March discovered nothing. In the land boom Garnet kept the
odd sixty acres, generally supposed to be a part of Widewood, out of
sight, and induced John to deed it to his mother. But when John came
back from Europe landless, there arose the new risk that he might
persuade her to sell the odd sixty acres, and, on looking into the
records to get its description, find himself and his mother the legal
owners of Rosemont.
"That's why the villain was so anxious to marry her!" said John to
himself audibly as he paced up and down in the Rosemont parlor.
"Mr. March," said Barbara's slow voice. She had entered as she spoke.
"Miss--Miss Garnet!"
"Please be seated." There was a tempest in her heart, but her words were
measured and low. "You were very kind to come." She dragged her short
sentences and at the same time crowded them upon each other as if afraid
to let him speak. He sat, a goodly picture of deferential attention,
starving to see again her old-time gaze; but she kept her eyes on the
floor. "Mr. March, of course--of course, this is terrible to--me. I only
say it because I don't want to seem heartless to--others--when I tell
you I thank God--O please don't speak yet, sir"--her hands trembled--"I
thank God this thing has come to light. For my dear father's own sake I
am glad, gladder than I can tell, that he has lost Rosemont. The loss
may save him. But I'm glad, too, Mr. March, that it's come to
you--please hear me--and to your mother. Of course I know your lost
Widewood isn't all here; but so much of it is. I wish----"
March stopped her with a gesture. "I will not--O I cannot--hear any
more! I'm ashamed to have let you say so much! Rosemont is yours and
shall stay yours! That's what I came to say. Two properties were
exchanged by accident when each was about as near worthless as the
other, and your mother's family and my father's have lived up to the
mistake and have stood by it for three generations. I will not take it!
My mother will not! She renounced it this morning! Do you understand?"
Barbara gave a start of pain and murmured, "I do." Her heart burned with
the knowledge that he was waiting for her uplifted glance. He began
again.
"The true value of Rosemont never came out of Widewood. It's the coined
wealth of your mother's character and yours!" He ceased in a sudden rage
of love as he saw the colors of the rose deepen slowly on the beautiful,
half-averted face, and then, for very trepidation, hurried on. "O
understand me, I will not be robbed! Major Garnet cannot have Rosemont.
But no one shall ever know I have not bought it of him. And it shall
first be yours; yours in law and trade as it is now in right. Then, if
you will, you, who have been its spirit and soul, shall keep it and be
so still. But if you will not, then we, my mother and I, will buy it of
you at a fair price. For, Miss--Miss----"
"Barb--" she murmured.
"O thank you!" cried he. "A thousand times! And a thousand times I
promise you I'll never misunderstand you again! But hem!--to return to
the subject; Miss Barb--I--O well, I was going to add merely that--that,
eh--I--hem!--that, eh--O--However!" She raised her eyes and he turned
crimson as he stammered, "I--I--I've forgotten what I was going to say!"
"I can neither keep Rosemont nor sell it, Mr. March. It's yours. It's
yours every way. It's yours in the public wish; my father told me so
last night. And there's a poetic justice----"
"Poetic--O!"
"Mr. March, didn't we once agree that God gives us our lives in the
rough for us to shape them into poetry--that it's poetry, whether sad or
gay, that makes alive--and that it's only the prose that kills?"
"Oh! do you remember that?"
"Yes." Her eyes fell again. "It was the time you asked me to use your
first name."
"O! Miss Barb, are you still going to hold that against me?"
"Rosemont should be yours, Mr. March. It rhymes!" She stood up.
"No! No, no! I give it to you!" he said, springing to his feet.
"Will you, really, Mr. March?" She moved a step toward the door.
"O Miss Barb, I do! I do!"
"But your mother's consent----"
A pang of incertitude troubled his brave face for an instant, but then
he said, "Oh, there can be no doubt! Let me go and get it!" He started.
"No," she falteringly said, "don't do it."
"Yes! Yes! Say yes! Tell me to go!" He caught her hand beseechingly. As
their eyes gazed into each other's, hers suddenly filled and fell.
"Go," was her one soft word. But as he reached the door another stopped
him:
"John----"
He turned and stood trembling from head to foot, his brow fretted with
an agony of doubt. "Oh, Barbara Garnet!" he cried, "why did you say
that?"
"Johanna told me," she murmured, smiling through her tears.
He started with half-lifted arms, but stopped, turned, and with a hand
on his brow, sighed, "My mother!"
But a touch rested on his arm and a voice that was never in life to be
strange to him again said, "If you don't say 'our mother,' I won't call
you John any----"
Oh! Oh! Oh! men are so rough sometimes!
THE END.
GEORGE W. CABLE'S WRITINGS.
BONAVENTURE. A Prose Pastoral of Arcadian Louisiana.
DR. SEVIER.
THE GRANDISSIMES. A Story of Creole Life.
OLD CREOLE DAYS.
STRANGE TRUE STORIES OF LOUISIANA. Illustrated
OLD CREOLE DAYS. Cameo Edition with Etching
OLD CREOLE DAYS.
MADAME DELPHINE.
THE CREOLES OF LOUISIANA. Illustrated from drawings by Pennell.
THE SILENT SOUTH, Together with the Freedman's Case in Equity and the
Convict Lease System. With Portrait.
End of Project Gutenberg's John March, Southerner, by George W. Cable